Gnus seems to not notice some emails

Gnus seems to not notice some emails

[Ross A. Laird]

I've been using gnus for a while, and it's a very appealing system. But
I have one problem: sometimes gnus does not notice new emails in my imap
inbox. These emails show up in mutt and Thunderbird, but not in gnus. I
use M-g, and still nothing. I also try g and the fetch options from the
agent menu. Nothing seems to work. I think the problem is that I do not
only use gnus. Gnus seems to track emails properly if it's the only
thing I use to read mail, but if I open up anything else -- not even to
read mail, but just to see if there's new mail -- gnus then fails to
notice anything new (since the last time I used another app). It's odd.
I'm not marking messages as read in the other apps, I'm just looking at
the list of new mails. If I do that, gnus gets confused.

I am a novice user, and I have no idea (really) which settings might
influence this, so I have appended (sorry) my entire .gnus file below
(much of this file has been copied and pasted from other sources). Any
suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Ross

.gnus:

;; General Speedups
(setq gnus-read-active-file nil) 
(setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil) 
(setq gnus-nov-is-evil nil) 
(setq gnus-save-newsrc-file t)
;; Use a second connection to grab the next article when I read one, so
;; I don't have to wait for it be downloaded.  
(setq gnus-asynchronous t)

(defun gnus-demon-scan-mail-or-news-and-update ()
  "Scan for new mail/news and update the *Group* buffer"
  (when (gnus-alive-p)  
    (save-window-excursion
      (save-excursion
 (set-buffer gnus-group-buffer)
 (gnus-group-get-new-news)))))

(defun gnus-demon-scan-and-update ()
  (gnus-demon-scan-mail-or-news-and-update))

;; Sort threads by the date of the root node.
(setq gnus-thread-sort-functions `(gnus-thread-sort-by-date))

(load-library "message")
(setq mail-sources
      '(imap 
	 :server "mail.server.info" 
	 :user "user" 
	 :password "password"))
(setq gnus-select-method
      '(nnimap "mail-imap"
	       (nnimap-address "mail.rosslaird.info")))
(setq nnimap-list-pattern "INBOX")
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '(
	(nnimap "mail-imap"
		(nnimap-address "mail.server.info")
		(nnimap-server-port 993)
		(nnimap-stream ssl)
		(nnimap-authenticator login)
		(nnimap-nov-is-evil t)
		(nnir-search-engine imap)
		(remove-prefix "INBOX.")
		(nnimap-authinfo-file		
		 "/home/user/.authinfo"
		 ))))
(setq gnus-group-sort-by-server)
(setq gnus-thread-hide-subtree)
(setq nnimap-fixup-unread-after-getting-new-news)
(setq smtpmail-smtp-server "mail.server.info")
(setq user-mail-address "user@server.info")
(setq message-send-mail-real-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
;(setq mm-text-html-renderer 'w3m-standalone)
(setq mm-discouraged-alternatives '("text/html" "text/richtext"))
;(setq gnus-message-archive-group "nnimap+rosslaird:INBOX.Sent")
(setq gnus-outgoing-message-group "nnimap+rosslaird:INBOX.Sent")
(setq nnimap-need-unselect-to-notice-new-mail t)
(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)
(add-hook 'message-mode-hook 'turn-on-auto-fill)
;(add-hook 'message-mode-hook 'nnimap-fixup-unread-after-getting-new-news)
(setq gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z %d %I%(%[%4L: %-23,23f%]%) %s\n")
(setq gnus-directory "~/gnus")
(setq message-directory "~/gnus/mail")
(setq nnml-directory "~/gnus/nnml-mail")
(setq gnus-article-save-directory "~/gnus/saved")
(setq gnus-kill-files-directory "~/gnus/scores")
(setq gnus-cache-directory "~/gnus/cache")
(add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'bbdb-insinuate-gnus)
(add-hook 'dired-mode-hook 'turn-on-gnus-dired-mode)

(require 'gnus-demon)
;(setq gnus-use-demon t)
;(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-group-get-new-news 10 2)
(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-and-update 10 2)
(setq gnus-use-demon t)
(gnus-demon-init)

; browsing
(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-firefox
           browse-url-new-window-flag  t
           browse-url-firefox-new-window-is-tab t)


-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Gnus seems to not notice some emails

[Ross A. Laird]

I thought I'd reply to my own post since no one seems to be able to help
with my particular problem. I have, in fact, narrowed it down a bit:
it's the agent. Somehow this problem is related to two circumstances:

IF I do not use gnus for some period of time (perhaps longer than the
expiry time, but I have no idea);

AND I return to using gnus later (say, a month later);

THEN gnus exhibits the failure-to-notice problem.

I discovered that it was not only new messages that gnus was failing to
notice; it was also all messages (read and unread) that had moved
through the mail account since the last time I had used gnus. So,
somehow gnus is deciding to ignore everything after a certain date and
ignore everything new as well -- but only when I stop using it (and
this has typically been because I encountered a similar problem, or
because some fancy new version of mutt or Thunderbird arrived, and I
wanted to experiment).

I deleted all data that seemed relevant in the agent folder and now gnus works
perfectly. But it's odd, this problem.

Ross

-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.info

Re: Gnus seems to not notice some emails

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Jan 30 2008, Ross A. Laird wrote:

> I deleted all data that seemed relevant in the agent folder and now
> gnus works perfectly. 

(Just a shot in the dark...)  Does it help to set
`gnus-agent-synchronize-flags' to a non-nil value?

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/